Numbers Ascending Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Rode

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Legacy

  2. Kole

  3. Legacy

  4. Legacy

  5. Legacy

  6. Kole

  7. Legacy

  8. Kole

  9. Legacy

  10. Legacy

  11. Kole

  12. Legacy

  13. Kole

  14. Legacy

  15. Kole

  16. Kole

  17. Legacy

  18. Legacy

  19. Kole

  20. Kole

  21. Legacy

  22. Legacy

  23. Legacy

  24. Kole

  25. Legacy

  26. Legacy

  27. Legacy

  28. Kole

  29. Legacy

  30. Kole

  31. Legacy

  32. Legacy

  33. Legacy

  34. Kole

  35. Kole

  Dear Reader,

  BONUS: MALACHI’S STORY

  Experience the original Numbers Game Adventure

  Experience The Ember Series

  About the Author

  One

  Legacy

  As always, the Firebrand pretended not to notice me. He stood at the corner, arms crossed, expression amused, as he watched the army of excited schoolmates navigate the hallway. The same gray T-shirt he’d worn most of the school year pulled tight around his shoulders, coming to a V where he’d left it unbuttoned to expose his collarbone. It was that and those startling gray-blue eyes that melted most girls’ hearts.

  Most—but not all. I was one of the few who knew what he was, which meant staying far away. Our interactions were limited to a simple walk-by after school.

  His eyes skipped over me. It would have been convincing had his shoulders not tensed as I passed.

  Me: Eighty-two.

  Firebrand: Zero.

  There wouldn’t be an eighty-three. With it being the last day of school, the hallway was packed with chattering graduates moving more slowly than usual, calling their goodbyes and promising to stay in touch. As if any of them would still be friends a year from now. After our Declarations tomorrow, most would be traveling to the new lives they’d chosen and their permanent homes.

  Except me. My life had been chosen for me before I was born. Maybe even before my parents were born. Gram, or Her Honorable Treena Hawking, as people called her, had given the country every shred of freedom they’d asked for—retiring the Rating system and moving everyone to the coast. Letting them choose how they spent their lives.

  Unless they were her posterity. Then we were cemented into politics as tightly as the metal statue of Gram was cemented in front of the Block.

  I looked over my shoulder at the crowded hallway one last time, fixing it in my memory. My actual memory, not my implant files. The sickly blue walls surrounding me, covered in colorful wall-ad screens. The gray tile floors. The heavy body odor that never left despite the contingent of janitors who attacked the campus each night. Just a building full of classrooms housing a thousand memories. I had fought so hard to come here, to ditch the professor who’d tutored my twin brother Alex and me, begging my parents for the opportunity to be normal.

  Normal. The very idea was laughable. Three years at a public school did not a normal teenager make. My ex-boyfriend, Derik, was proof enough of that.

  The Firebrand was watching me.

  I slowed, meeting his gaze with a challenge of my own. He jerked and tore his eyes away, fixing his attention on a wall screen that read Congratulations, Graduates! At least the school had taken a break from its relentless “fundraising” ads to offer us a useful message.

  Firebrands, the fringe political group that wanted Dad removed from office, didn’t talk to Hawkings. Not even on the last day of school. And Hawkings most definitely did not interact with Firebrands. It was one of those laws both sides simply understood.

  A professor walked by and nodded to me, unable to hide the relief on her face. Another graduating class gone. Another year finished. The Hawking heiress swept off to her fake future in politics and out of her hair forever.

  Only one professor had ever felt comfortable in my presence. And, as luck would have it, they’d fired her halfway through the year for having a frank conversation with me about my not-so-stellar grades. She had been right, but that didn’t matter. One message from His Honor Dad Hawking and the school had withdrawn like a snail in the afternoon sun. The message was clear: leave Legacy Hawking alone.

  They had. Everyone had. I felt like the brightly colored fish at Dad’s office, alone and cursed forever in a luxurious aquarium.

  The crowd slowed as we neared the doors, and I groaned. The door tradition. Each year, the school’s staff stood outside and clapped for those stepping through the doorway into adulthood or some such nonsense. That was fine, but the students also felt it necessary to pose, hovering over that stupid threshold in a silly way while their friends took captures.

  Easing to the right, I squeezed through a gap between two bodies, getting an irritated “Hey!” from one girl. The expression that came to her face when she recognized me was hilarious. What was I going to do, arrest her? I didn’t have the power to repaint my own bedroom. Not when the tabloids analyzed every color, texture, and fabric. Designers from all over the country had competed on a national broadcast for the opportunity of their lives. Not one had asked for my opinion.

  The side door came into sight. I finally squeezed myself free, imagining a sucking sound as I did, and shoved the door open. The fresh air felt like a cold shower on a hot day. The sidewalk was nearly as crowded as the hallway, and transports packed the street, but not a single person looked at me. Not the students, not the professors, not the guards. For the first time in months, I felt completely free.

  It lasted half a second. A message arrived from my driver, Travers. It floated in my vision beneath the digital time, the words blurring the background beyond them. YOU’RE LATE. WHERE ARE YOU?

  I blinked, sweeping the implant message away without a response, but my euphoria had already begun to deflate. The moment was gone.

  The door opened behind me. “You going to block the door all day?”

  I turned to find Firebrand Guy staring down at me, his eyes widening in recognition. This was the closest we’d ever stood. The air around him smelled faintly of day-old musk and sea salt. He wore his black hair spiked messily in a very I-don’t-care way that gave him the illusion of even more height than he had. His eye color perfectly matched the clouds overhead.

  It wasn’t his eye color that startled me. It was the depth in them, the lifetime of pain they carried.

  I cleared my throat, breaking eye contact. Apparently our silent pact was over, but that didn’t mean I’d won. “I might. I like this doorway.”

  “Your father may own the country and every other door in the building, but you can’t have this one. It’s how I’ve escaped every day this year.” Now his eyes glinted with silent laughter.

  A smile threatened, but I wrestled it into submission. “I’m afraid your secret has been discovered. Although neither of us will be using it again with Declarations tomorrow.”

  “Lucky us. We get to move from one prison to another. I’m Kole.”

  “Legacy.”

  “Yeah, I think I knew that.” He adjusted his shirt. I didn’t mean to follow the movement, but my eye
s locked on the exposed collarbone before I remembered. Firebrands didn’t get their tattoos until they turned eighteen. This guy wouldn’t have taken the oath yet.

  It didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  His eyes hardened as he followed my gaze. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. Don’t you usually have an army following you around?”

  “Nah. That’s my fan club.” A second message from Travers arrived. I dismissed it without reading it. “I do have an impatient driver, though. He’ll be here any second.”

  “A driver. Of course.”

  I folded my arms. “Let me guess. You take the train home with your Firebrand buddies and discuss how oppressed you are under my dad’s rule. You cry the entire trip and take a whip to your back when you get home.”

  “Not true. I walk home.” His mouth twitched. I wasn’t the only one struggling to keep a straight face. “See you tomorrow, princess. Or do you even have to Declare when the entire country knows about your sweet gig at Daddy’s office?”

  “A position I earned as much as anybody.”

  “By what, failing your classes and scowling at the world? Three-quarters of the school is more qualified, so spare me the excuses.”

  I tamped down my immediate reaction, which was to send a fist through his too-perfect nose. “You have no idea what my life is like.”

  “And your dad has no idea about mine. Which is a problem, don’t you think?”

  “He could help your little group if you’d stop demanding impossibilities.”

  “Restoring the Rating system isn’t an impossibility. It’s an inevitability.” He leaned closer, his gray eyes capturing my attention once more. “And the Firebrands are anything but a little group.”

  Then he was striding down the sidewalk in the direction of the Shadows.

  Typical Firebrand activist—smug, overconfident, and whiny. I cursed, angry at myself for letting him have the last word. Firebrand: One.

  I watched his tall figure stalk down the sidewalk until he disappeared around a corner. The guy really was walking home. Because he couldn’t afford the train fare or because he was too stubborn to follow the crowd? Something told me it was the latter.

  And he was wrong about the Rating system. Anybody who meant to cure our country’s problems by slapping numbers on our heads to control us had a screw loose somewhere.

  A clean matte-black transport slowed and pulled to the side of the six-lane street in front of me, looking out of place next to the ad-plastered models in traffic. Travers leaped out, all lean and lanky angles in his black uniform, the light catching what little gray hair he’d managed to keep. He yanked the door open for me—a formality considering the door could open on its own.

  “Given your expression,” he said, “I’ll forgo asking how your day was and remind you that the tutor is waiting at home.”

  I climbed in and plopped onto my usual seat. The butter-soft white plastic curved to my body after years of use. The harness swung down automatically and fastened itself around me with a click. “My expression is the same as normal.”

  “You look ready to murder someone. So, yes, a normal day at school.” Travers shot me a pointed look as he closed my door and climbed into the front right seat.

  Of all my father’s employees, Travers was my favorite. He could be insistent at times and a little obnoxious about my schedule, which Dad liked, but he knew when I needed a distraction from the heaviness and drama of life in the spotlight. He also taught me odd things like transport maintenance. On a rainy day a few years ago, he’d shown me a secret access code that unlocked all transport doors. I still remembered it. I always tipped him despite Dad’s insistence that his salary was high enough.

  “I ran into a Firebrand,” I muttered.

  “Home, please,” Travers called out. The vehicle clicked a confirmation and moved smoothly back into traffic. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Ah. That sounds painful.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Technically, he ran into me. Or almost did.” I was rambling now. “At first I thought he was quieter than the others and less obnoxious, but I was wrong.”

  “Quiet means dangerous. Never know what they’re planning in those scheming heads of theirs. I’m glad you know better than to fraternize with such people. They threaten everything your grandmother has sacrificed so much to establish.” Travers shook his head and faced the front again. “Now, back to your schedule for today. The tutor awaits for your final run-through of tomorrow’s Declaration, then the hairdresser arrives to touch up your color. Your father should be home for dinner. I’m told he plans to give you and your brother a pep talk of some kind. Then—”

  “I’m not going home yet. I want to see Gram.”

  He stiffened. “I’m sure your grandmother can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Professor Vine had several decades left in him last I checked. Gram doesn’t.”

  The joke passed right over him. “The Honorable Treena Hawking sleeps in the afternoons. Meanwhile, Professor Vine can’t polish your Declaration without you.”

  “Sure he can. He wrote it in the first place.”

  “Perhaps we could have made a stop if you’d been on time, but we’re already a quarter of an hour late.”

  “I had to say goodbye to some friends. Graduation is a big deal. Or don’t you remember? I know it was a long time ago for you.”

  “All those friends. I’m sure that took awhile.”

  I stared at my hands. “Sure did.”

  The smile left his eyes. “I know you resent your father’s lectures about the importance of tomorrow’s announcement, but I agree with him this time. The entire country will be watching you. That’s a privilege to be taken seriously.”

  I cringed at the word “privilege.” It was too often used as a weapon against me. “I already know how to say, ‘I’m following in my father’s honorable footsteps and doing exactly what every Hawking ever has done. Yes, I’m irrelevant, and no, I don’t care. Thanks for the tax money and my big house’.”

  Travers sighed heavily. “At least you acknowledge where your father’s money comes from, which is more than most politicians accomplish in a lifetime.”

  “I’m a quick learner. Transport, course correction. Take us to Gram’s house.” The transport clicked in affirmation and veered right, out of traffic and toward the clearer sky of the coast. The tall buildings towering over the road immediately grew less frequent. The closer we got to the coast, the less there was of anything—except weeds and tangled forestland. Experts said it was due to some tsunami a century before, but Gram had other theories.

  Travers moaned. “You were so much easier as a young child.”

  I grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.”

  “Quick? Which version of quick will this be, Miss Hawking? Your speed at which you left school today, or the speed at which you got ready for school this morning and every other day this year? Or perhaps your last visit to Gram’s house, which lasted four hours when you asked for ten minutes?”

  “Quick enough. You don’t need to . . .” I trailed off as a message scrolled across my implant screen, floating in my vision.

  MESSAGE RECEIVED: DIRECTOR VIRGIL, NEUROMEN LABS

  GREETINGS, MISS HAWKING. WE WISH TO OFFER YOU THE POSITION OF LAB SPECIALIST AT NEUROMEN LABS.

  WE HOPE YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT THIS HONOR AT YOUR DECLARATION TOMORROW. IT WOULD BE A PLEASURE TO ADD A HAWKING TO OUR PRESTIGIOUS PROGRAM ONCE AGAIN.

  I felt my hands curl into fists. Neuromen had created our brain implants and software, although Gram insisted the technology had been around for decades. But most importantly, it was also the lab where Mom had worked, where she’d invested her entire soul and over twenty years of back-breaking work.

  The place she’d died.

  How dare Director Virgil send me this after what happened to Mom? Did he live in some delusion that I would actually appreciate the gesture? The message may as well have said, “Thanks for sacrificing your mom. Who’s next?”
>
  “Miss Hawking?”

  The transport was unbearably hot despite the spring chill. If only I’d worn my short-sleeved dress instead of the more sophisticated gray wool one. I dismissed the message and shot Travers a tight smile. “Yep?”

  Travers gave me a long look. “We’re arriving now.”

  We pulled up the circular driveway in front of Gram’s coastal home with its newly painted light-purple exterior. Gram’s pick. It matched the stone necklace she’d worn since before Dad was born. The structure stood two stories tall and was oddly narrow. Gram could have chosen any of the long-abandoned mansions in town, but she’d insisted her frail body ran on salt and sea wind and she didn’t mind how old and run-down it was.

  Travers climbed out and held the door for me. I blinked a few times, transferring a tip via the IM-NET, the invisible web that connected our implants. He accepted it with a barely perceptible nod.

  “This may be a good time to finish that book you’ve been hiding under the seat,” I told him as I slid out, lifting my dress to avoid the mud. “The one with that busty blonde on the cover. Or was it a brunette this time?”

  “Blonde, and I finished it yesterday,” he said quickly, his eyes flicking to the guards pulling the door open for me, fists to their chests. By law, old-fashioned paper books belonged in protected museum environments. Not that any museum would want this kind. Its cover was delightfully scandalous.

  “I’ll see if I can find you another, then. Can’t have you sitting out here bored all the time.” I winked. His mouth twitched, but he kept his composure for the guards’ sake. Then I strode into the darkness of Gram’s manor.